4Play
By Don Allred
unpublished, they dropped an issue oops
written for week beginning 6/16/2010
The Fiery Furnaces
Wednesday @ Outland
The Fiery Furnaces' "Rehearsing My Choir" was a soulfully microcosmic
pop collaboration of TFF's central siblings Matthew and Eleanor
Friedberger with their late grandmother, Olga Santoros. "Bitter Tea"
less challengingly served up Eleanor's more sultry tones, suggesting a
ruefully surviving Karen Carpenter. She held her own in "Widow City",
a folk-metal metropolis "drunk on wormwood." The Furnaces' current
"I'm Going Away" has Eleanor channeling the early, innocent fervor of
Smokey Robinson and Michael Jackson, simultaneously foreshadowing
later detours. Matthew's cinematically edited catchiness keeps
credibility crackling, as relationships burn on.
Baaba MaalWednesday @ Newport Music HallAfrican singer Baaba Maal declares, "The musician's role is to giveadvice, to warn people, and to make them aware." News you can use, notso far from his take on TV: "A stranger…you don't care who he is…hejust seems to come from nowhere and gives you information." SoBrazilian Girls swirl in bittersweet bliss around "Television", themagical title track of Maal's current set. Maal's an unblinking guide,who also points out "A big balloon/Beside the moon" while an acousticguitar hovers eagerly near by.
JD SamsonThursday @ AxisJD Samson projects assurance and vulnerability. As DJ, producer,keyboard player and singer, Samson's a natural performer, both soloand with disco-punks Le Tigre and Men, plus dance-pop combo NewEngland Roses. "Credit Card Babies" critiques and empathizes withstraights and gays wanting kids, while Samson's wistful musing that"It's not so hard/To make a heart" deftly implies a rhyme with "Tobreak a heart." She also mixes the kind of flamboyant dance music thatdoesn't seem to need mixing, until you hear what she brings to it.
Robert Earl KeenTuesday @ Huntington ParkTexas singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen likes to mess withcomfortable materials. Verses keep flexing the context of his mostfamous (and bumper sticker-ready) chorus, "The road goes onforever/And the party never ends." Most of the songs on Keen's "TheRose Hotel" also provide excellent points of departure for restlessguests. Even the citizen who nostalgically dwells on "Throwing Rocks"with his country rock honey gets overtaken by events, smoothlyinfiltrating and re-calibrating his sentiments and grooves. Vitalityrides with mortality, and a bunch of colorful maps.